Down in the Valley
by Alexis Machine
Summary: A conversation about a mask.


"Down in the Valley"

This is a story involving characters created by Joss Whedon. These magnificent characters' real story was tragically cut short by those at Fox so they could put on something like "Ethiopian Midget Tossing Contest." You know... that wouldn't be a bad name for an alternative band. It's not my vision, but damn if I didn't wish I could write something so sharp and true sounding, and damn if I don't respect JW for doing it.

To dedicate to Aemilia who got me into it anyway, and to this poor lady name of Martha--a nice person and by all accounts a great writer, though I've never happened across her work--who's been stricken by strokes. Beata estis, Martha!

Jayne's huge voice boomed down Serenity's corridors, still singing the ancient song he'd been trying to learn for two weeks now, "Louie Lou-ai, oh, oh, I think I'll die, ai yai, yai yai," he missed a chord on the electric guitar they'd picked up on Marina. His fingers weren't really what you'd call delicate and musician like, Mal mused. Then again, no feature Jayne possessed could be called particularly delicate, nor musician like He gamely cranked it up again, "I think I'll die, ai yai, yai yai." Jayne always practiced at top volume. Mal didn't know if he was deaf, or maybe just an ass. Probably the latter. "Louie Lou-ai, oh, ai, yai yai."

In a valiant if futile effort to escape the racket Mal ducked through the heavy, red curtains that hung the corridor between Inara's shuttle and Serenity. It always felt like tumbling down into a dream, the way the silk felt against your hands and face, the acrid incense in your nose, tickling the hairs there like a pretty woman's fingers on your scalp. Speaking of pretty women, one sat at the console, her hair's long, dark fall backlit by screen's pallid glow. She didn't even turn, "I don't recall inviting you, Mal."

"Good gods, woman," he slumped onto her couch, "do I look a vampire to you? Have I an unnatural pallor? Do I drink blood?"

"No, but you turn into bat by night, and have sexual congress with the devil." She still had not turned to face him. Arguing with Inara's hair was fun.

"You know my secrets," Mal said, "but it's no secret why I'm here."

"So direct?" she said, her voice pitched slightly higher. "Clumsy, Mal, but I'm touched."

"You must be deaf, too, to not hear that." It was louder, now, and the curtains did naught to obscure it. Ai, yai, yai, yai. "He sounds like a bullfrog mating." The chorus riff hit like an Alliance cruiser. Twang, twang, twang, twang twang... blonk! He missed the B chord. Jayne's curses burned the air black and crispy. "Well," Mal said, "if the frog got shot down. With a missile."

She smiled, and he could feel her smiling. "At least he's not working on the original composition... are you familiar with it?"

"Ah yes, soon to be a hit, all over the Core," Mal said, "the Ballad of Jayne and the Three Breasted Whore." He thought about it for a minute, "Core... whore... why I'll be damned, I just made a rime. Can I be a songwriter, too?"

"I'll throw you out faster than I will anyway," Inara said.

"Well, fair enough." It started started again. "I would sell my soul for that to stop."

"Why don't you command it, Captain?"

"You know, mockery ill becomes you. Jayne loves that guitar. He's even named it. Lucinda. I wonder if Vera's jealous?"

"She's a good gun," Inara said, "I'm sure she knows a man has needs." She didn't even giggle. Mal found more respect for her, in that moment. 

"So," he said, "I think we've exhausted the subject of Jayne's musical talent, or lack thereof..." he groped for a subject. Sometimes this was like petting a cat. A poisonous cat. A poisonous cat with a gun that shot poisonous bullets. The sort of poison that made you swell up, and get black, and then get all split and pus-like. "Er," he said, "so... how's business?"

She did turn, now, which he'd known she would, and her eyes were part of the shadow behind her, "You know I don't like to talk about that with you, Mal."

"Do I ever object if you ask about my job?" He scratched at his face.

"No, but I don't act by turns like a jealous ten year old or a hypocritical old woman if you tell me about what you're stealing," she said, "and you should shave that beard off. It makes you look disreputable."

Mal scratched a little harder, "You're probably right, there. I feel like a damned furling, here."

"You look like a dirty space pirate."

"Space pirate? I'm an honest smuggler."

"I note you didn't deny 'dirty.'"

"Well," he said, "it's always best to try and humor crazy folks. Anyway, I don't see what you're so upset about me asking. Just being friendly like, you know?"

"You're baiting me, and you know it."

"Nothing wrong with a little honest whoring," Mal said, "pays the bills."

"Out," Inara said, "now." 

There was danger, just below the surface, in her eyes, and the lines were set on her pretty face. It was the kind of anger that leaves festering wounds--back to the poisonous cat, but, hell, he deserved it, sometimes. "You'd hurl me out into that nightmare?" he said. Jayne had resumed work on his masterpiece. There once was a girl, and her name was Arlene--bang bang bang bang bang, bang bang bang bang bang--some say she's a skank, but hell, she's a queen, and no I don't even care if she's diseased... she's a good woman, my woman, Arlene.

"I think you should have to be tied up in there with him," Inara said.

"Even for the chorus?"

"Especially for the chorus. Now go!"

"All right, all right." He hauled himself up. "If I die out there, it'll be on you."

"I think I might be able to live with it."

He slipped through the curtains again, thinking about their rustle and how the shadows moved against her face. Strange face, still exotic, in spite of such familiarity. She closed the door behind him, locked it. No more baiting tonight, or conversation, or whatever they called it, this time. Time drug on slow, and some of Mal's scars were ailing him, the deep cuts, the old gunshot wounds, where the sword had gone in, right above the hip.

That one hurt a lot.

It was just him, Zoe and Wash at supper. Everyone was up to something, it seemed. Reading, acting crazy, et cetera. Whatever floated the old raft. Kaylie was down with the engines, he knew and Jayne was still cloistered with that damned guitar. There were worse sounds. Most of them were made by horses dying. After battle. In pain. "The ship's not big enough for this," Wash said, "I can't take it."

"You want him to stop?" Mal said, "You make him. You'll appreciate the silence more."

"You're a perverse man, Captain."

"Not the worst thing I've been called today, and probably true."

"Wang ba dan."

Zoe prodded her husband in the ribs, "Mind your manners, Wash."

"Oh," he said, "excuse me. Wang ba dan... sir."

Mal laughed, "Just for that? I'm telling Jayne you want to sing back-up." He pushed away from the table, "I'm leaving you good people to your own devices, now. Think you'll make it without me?"

"We'll certainly try, sir."

"Zai jian, guys."

"Night."

The corridors were quiet, now. Jayne had finally given it a rest for the night, and the only sound was the engines' constant thrum. No... there was another sound, too. Faint, like a whisper from the woods, on a rainy evening. "Down in the valley, the valley so low, I lost my true lover, came courting too slow. Now loving's a pleasure, now loving's a grief, a false hearted lover, is worse than a thief."

The words cut into him like shrapnel. Mal winced, "That one's an old song."

"It is," Inara said.

"Never known you as much of a singer," Mal said, "or has Jayne inspired the music in you?"

"God no," she said, "it's such a lovely melody, though. My nurses sang it, when I was small." 

She stood silent, face wistful, a sliver of shadow and flame. Mal imagined the little girl she'd been, quiet, serious, nothing but huge dark eyes that studied every movement in minute detail. He could have said a hundred things, watching her stand like that. He said, "There's songs that I like more, I think." He slid up the door to his cabin, "Zai jian. Sleep well. Don't sing."

The mattress was uncomfortable. Mal would have found sleep hard that night, anyway, even if she hadn't slithered down the ladder like a sinuous, dark tongue, somehow finding the ladder's rungs even with the lights out. "I don't recall inviting you down." It sounded absurd, even before he said it.

"I look even less like a vampire than you do, Mal," she said. Inara sat by the bedside.

"What do you want from me? Really?" That sounded absurd, too.

Her answer was serious, though. "Really? I want you to take off your mask. Show me your face."

"Show you my face?" Mal laughed. "--you're crazy--"

"I don't think I am. If anyone knows about role-play, Mal, it's me. All we see of you is the ghost of a man that died in Serenity Valley. Is that all there is that's left, or is there more to you than this mask made out of dead soldiers?"

"Mask made of dead soldiers?" Mal sat up, "Now I know you're crazy."

She smiled, "If it pleases you to think so, then I'm crazy. But you're a ghost."

Mal thought, then, of calling her a whore. She'd huff, call him something worse, and be gone. Their usual routine in reverse, vaudeville for an audience of two. He almost said it, the word waited at the back of his throat, but it never left his lips. He couldn't be sure if it was something he wanted to say, or something he just expected to. He never knew. And so why did he say it? He hated neither woman nor profession, though he hated it as this particular woman's profession. That must be it, then. The word died--it never really lived anyway. Instead Mal said, "I think I need some sleep. If ghosts indeed need sleep." He shut his eyes. It didn't get any darker.

Her voice was soft, beside him, the caress of an angel, but it pierced like a sword. "Down in the valley, the valley so low, I'll hang my head over, I'll hear the wind blow." There were worse lullabies. Mal could feel himself drifting toward sleep and, in an act of incredible trust, that he could not himself believe, let it take him on the feathery wind, hoping it would carry him up and away from the valley he lived in. 


End file.
